Gen Petraeus confirmed as new commander in Afghanistan

General David Petraeus, who saved a failing US mission in Iraq, has been confirmed as the new commander of the allied war effort in Afghanistan.

General David Petraeus has warned that fighting in Afghanistan may intensify in coming monthsPhoto: GETTY

6:40PM BST 30 Jun 2010

Senate approval Wednesday came just one week after President Barack Obama named Gen Petraeus, 57, as his choice to fill the post after General Stanley McChrystal was sacked over a magazine profile in which he and his aides belittled civilian leaders.

The move means Gen Petraeus relinquishes command of all US forces in the Middle East to take over a military campaign that has been stymied by a resilient Taliban foe, rising casualties and deep divisions within the administration.

At his confirmation hearing one day before his Senate confirmation, Gen Petraeus warned anxious lawmakers that Western forces face "tough fighting" against Taliban insurgents.

"Indeed, it may get more intense in the next few months," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Gen Petraeus also warned it would take "a number of years" before Afghan security forces could take over for NATO-led troops, a step US officials have described as a precondition for a complete withdrawal.

It is the second time Gen Petraeus has been called upon to turn around the country's fortunes in an unpopular war.

Former president George W. Bush turned to him in 2007 to salvage the US war effort in Iraq

The author of the US Army's new counter-insurgency manual, Gen Petraeus used a "surge" in US forces to restore security in the cities and capitalized on divisions in the Sunni insurgency to turn it against Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

US forces in Iraq, which once numbered over 170,000, are on track to go to 50,000 by August.

From his perch at the US Central Command, Gen Petraeus has backed a similar 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan and argued for bringing to bear counter-insurgency lessons learned in Iraq.

Politically savvy and intensely competitive, Gen Petraeus is easily the most celebrated general of his generation, a fact that has been known to rankle fellow army officers, who sometimes refer to him, cuttingly, as "King David."

The New York state native graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1974, was the top of his 1983 class at the US Army Command and General Staff College, and went on to earn a PhD in international relations at Princeton University.

Petraeus commanded the 101st Airborne Division during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and quickly pacified the northern region around Mosul.

He later headed up the troubled US effort to train Iraqi security forces, and then returned to the United States to oversee the writing of the manual for counter-insurgency warfare.